Choose Engagement Over Complacency: Passionately Pursue Your More

Come on, will you just, in your own words, tune everybody else out, close everybody else. If you need to close your eyes, if you need to come up and stand over in a corner, kneel at an altar, whatever you need to do but for the next minute, minute and a half, can we just press into his presence? Because I refuse to go through life and have church but not have god We didn't gather just to do a religious thing. Listen, we gathered so that we could encounter his presence and so would you just do that? Father, we just bless you. [00:28:38] (44 seconds)  #PressIntoHisPresence

So, here's my challenge to you this morning as we continue in worship is Imma ask you, we all walked in carrying thoughts and burdens and frustrations and disappointments and and and stresses of the week to come or the stresses of last week. Here's what I'm asking you to do this morning. Would you lay those things to the side? I'm not telling you don't don't don't deal with them. Listen, but for the next hour or so, you can't deal with them anyway, okay? So, would you just lay those to the side and would you take the advice of Jesus this morning? [00:12:40] (43 seconds)  #LayDownYourBurdens

So, here's what I'm gonna ask for us to do today because we're getting ready. We're gonna worship like we do at the end of every service but I'm gonna pray. Here's what I'm gonna ask. I'm gonna ask if if man, if any of these choices really struck at your heart, you're going, man, I I this is, I'm really focusing in on this one right now because fact is, you can't you can't make all eight choices at one time. Let's let's be real. You can't make all eight choices at one time but what you can do is focus on the area that god places his finger in your life, right? [01:34:53] (39 seconds)  #FocusOnOneChange

Man, I just feel like there's supposed to be a moment of just flow there. A moment where we press into the presence of the lord. Come on, I think we've gotten way too comfortable just kinda coming in, singing three songs, praying for church of the week, offering. Imma ask you for the next couple couple of minutes and I'm not gonna drag this out but I but I really want us to never push past his presence too fast. So, Imma ask you, with no words, them just playing what they're playing. [00:27:57] (41 seconds)  #DontRushHisPresence

Come on and so, we say that but I'm gonna be honest what I have found in in the years of pastoring that I now have under my belt is that most people do actually wanna be told despite what they say. They do actually wanna be told what to do and not to do. And so Paul begins in verse nine. He says, let love be without hypocrisy. Abore what is evil, cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the lord, rejoicing in hope, patient, and tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given the hospitality. [00:58:27] (44 seconds)  #LoveWithoutHypocrisy

Matthew chapter 22, a Pharisee comes and and and begins to challenge Jesus and he asked Jesus, he says, you know, what's the greatest commandment? And it's real easy. Everybody knows it. If you've been in church for a while, Jesus says, I can't answer with one. I gotta answer with two. He says, love the lord your god and love people but his answer, his quotation when he talks about the way that we worship god. He says, I want you to love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your minds. [00:11:59] (41 seconds)  #LoveGodLovePeople

Man, a number of years ago when I was in undergrad, I had some friends in right outside of Wilmington, North Carolina and one Friday night, after a football game, they got into a horrible accident and and for, oh man, it was couple of weeks. One of my friends was in a coma and and they called us. They and they called me. I was living with my parents. I was an hour and a half away from where they were and I jumped in my car and and drove up to where they were and [00:33:29] (46 seconds)  #ShowUpInCrisis

And father, I don't know what they're encountering. I don't know what they're going through. I don't know what they're facing. But god, I do know this, that you are the god who loves to step into the middle of impossible situations We time. The you going in We're midst of do in to we thank you. We thank you. And will you just for the next thirty seconds, will you just lift your hands? You are my everything. [00:38:44] (86 seconds)  #GodOfTheImpossible